After Mauling By Tiger, Geertz Needs Some Help

Updated Nov. 24, 2006 12:01 a.m. ET

One hesitates to leap into the fray with so formidable a polemicist as Lionel Tiger, but his ungenerous eulogy of Anthopologist Clifford Geertz ("'Fuzz, Fuzz . . . It Was Covered in Fuzz'," editorial page, Nov. 7) should not go unanswered. Geertz's hard-earned view of humankind was defined as much by wonder at its confounding variety as by grief at our recklessness in managing so priceless a legacy. Though easily mocked, his style did force readers to replay the arduous business of finding one's feet among strangers in strange lands. Whether the results were always worth the effort is arguable. Treating...